Jody Holland Blog

What you focus on, expands! This is the fundamental truth of life. When we focus on problems, our problems seem to get bigger. When we focus on success, our success seems to get bigger. The key is understanding where to put your focus.

In the business consulting and coaching that I do, I have found that too many organizations focus on defining the problem and too few focus on what they are trying to accomplish. When they focus on the problem, they find "splinter problems" all over the place. They find a multitude of things that are wrong, but never really get down to defining what they are needing. Those splinter problems are the symptoms of the bigger issue. When the actual problem is solved, the symptoms go away on their own. As an example, I get the opportunity to solve "turnover issues" on a regular basis. Turnover within a workforce is not the problem though. It is a symptom of some need that is not being met. The primary reason that an employee leaves a company is that they are unhappy with their supervisor. Instead of helping the supervisors grow and become great managers, many companies want to "fix" the employees.

The same is true in our spiritual lives. We often look at the problems that we have and think... Those need to go away. What we often miss, though, is the fact that we need to embrace our connectedness with the Spirit. It is our connection that gives us the fulfillment of that missing element. When we solve the underlying problem by shifting our focus to meeting the need, we solve all of the other problems that were symptoms of the main issue. The first step in problem solving isn't defining the problem. It is defining the need and then accepting the fact that change will be necessary. The second step is to look for ways to achieve the need.

When we focus on how we will achieve success in fulfilling our needs, we take our focus away from why we can't do something and embrace the process of achieving. The next step is to choose our solution and map out a plan to achieve. After that, we act. When we begin to act on the solution, we are acting on the achievement of an end result, not the avoidance of an issue. The final piece of the puzzle is to evaluate if your actions have gotten you the results that you wanted. If they have, then your needs are met. If your needs are still not met, then you did not act in the right manner. It would be time to try again.

The only problem that has really existed for us is that we have embraced the separation and followed the ego. The only solution that was needed was to realize the truth of our connectedness. This truth changes your life, eliminates the splinter problems, and brings the fulfillment that you and I both desire.

My challenge to you is to pursue the solution instead of focusing on the problem today!

Every choice that we make in life is a choice between the ego and the Spirit. It is a choice between a grievance and a miracle. It is a choice between looking for what is good and what is right in a person or a situation versus what is evil and what is wrong in the same. The challenge is that it has become very easy to see what is bad because that is what our ego wants us to see. That is what we would see with our eyes as they are trained now. The key is to see with your Spirit instead of your eyes.

Whether I am talking about politics, or religion, or the NFL, or any other highly emotional topic, my focus has to be on who the other person is at their core and what their potential is. Some years ago in Houston, TX, I was hired to coach an executive at a hospital. He was struggling with getting his staff to gel together and needed some ideas on what he could do differently in order to move things forward. When he and I first started talking, he brought quickly that he was an atheist. I responded with, "ok," and then continued to talk about what was going on at the hospital. He followed up with, "Aren't you a Christian?" I answered, "yes." He then asked me if it bothered me that he was an atheist. He felt that we should be fundamentally opposed to one another. My response was, "I don't know much about you yet, but I do know that you have strong beliefs. Your belief that there is no god doesn't affect my belief. I am not asking you to change. I am not telling you that you are wrong. I am here to see the potential in you and help you to see it as well." At that point, he relaxed and we started working toward the success of his team. By the end of the day, he said, "I think I would be a Christian if people would accept me as me the way that you have."

I think that is true for all of us, whether we are talking about religion or workplace performance, or virtually anything else. We want others to see us for the good that we are and the potential that we have. When we hold grievances against a person for the choices that they have made, we lose our ability to see the potential that they are. Each person is a creation of the Creator, and as such, they deserve respect. To disrespect them is to disrespect the core of who you are. It is to walk away from the truth that all things are one and that we are truly connected through the Spirit.

We can only see a person's spirit when we stop looking with our eyes and start looking with our heart. My challenge to you today is to see people for who they can be, to let go of the hurt that the one person, you know the one in your mind right now, has done to you. Let go of your ego and take hold of your purpose. Look with your heart and see the good in the people and the circumstances around you.

One of the great struggles of our time has been distinguishing between what we are entitled to and what we should earn. For the past 16 years that I have been in business, I have heard hundreds of HR directors, business owners, and top executives complain that the younger generation operates with too much of a sense of entitlement. In the beginning, that was my generation that was being talked about. Now, it is the generation below me. They said that too many people are entering the workforce and expecting things to be done for them, and for opportunity to be handed to them.

The struggle, as I see it, is in knowing who we are versus whose we are. From the Spirit side of things, we are children of God and are truly entitled to a life of miracles. From the ego side of things, we are not entitled to the trappings of this world without the sacrifice that accompanies them. The ego would have you believe that you need, and even deserve, to have all of the "stuff" of this world without working for it. That is one of the best ways that the ego can set you up for failure and defeat. It's job is to entice and then disappoint. On the other hand, the Spirit wants only the best for you and there isn't anything that you can do to earn it. The difference is that one of them is truth and the other is not.

The truth is that you are created in the image of the Creator, and therefore are a part of the Creator. That also means that the Creator is a part of you. It is only in separation that we pursue the entitlements of the world. It is in truth that we were made for greatness and made for the miracles of God. We were made for miracles. When that sinks in, it changes everything. It is the reality that we were designed to live into.

The miracles that are inside of you, the ones that save you and save those around you, they are meant to be shared. They are meant to unlock the incredible life that has always been waiting for you. They are meant to erase the illusion of separation and spark the potential that is you. You are entitled to miracles because of what you are... a child of the Creator. You will receive miracles because of who the Creator is. You will share your miracles because you are one with the Creator. Your fulfillment does not lie in financial gain, even though the Spirit wants all that is good for you and that brings you true joy. Your fulfillment does not lie in anything except being who you were created to be.

My challenge to you today is to live an extraordinary life that changes the way that you see the world. When you change your perspective, you change your world!

When I was first married, I asked my wife to play Monopoly with me. It had been my favorite board game since I was about 10 years old. My brothers and my cousins and I would play it regularly. In fact, we were known to have Monopoly tournaments that could last all night. The problem was that we had made up our own rules for the game. We didn't follow the rules as they were written. My wife, on the other hand, actually read the rule book and knew what the rules were supposed to be. Consequently, I discovered that playing by the rules that "normal people" used made the game no fun for me.

This has been a theme that has been prevalent throughout my life. Any time I have discovered what "normal people" do, I tend to run the other direction. I have always felt the constraint to be way too much for me. For many people, the rules make things safe, and predictable, and comforting. For me, I wanted freedom from the rules and restrictions of normalcy. A key lesson that I have learned, mostly because of my mentality, is that I am the happiest when I live in the land of relationships and not in the land of the rules.

In business, it is relationship that inspires an employee to be a top performer, not rules. In a marriage, it is relationship that inspires your partner to continue to court you even after they have you. In Spirit, it is relationship that connects you to the source. It is relationship that makes the game of life so much fun! It was never the rules.

The rules, or the self-imposed laws, that we use to restrict ourselves and to live in the reality of the ego are what keep us from the life we were always intended to live. Rules are the gravity that keeps us orbiting around the ego and away from the spirit. It is relationship that changes the game. It breaks us free from the bondage of the rules without relationship. It cuts the tether of restriction and unleashes the potential for perfection.

My challenge to you today is to live in relationship, not in rules. Smile because you want to. Laugh because it feels right. Love because it is what you were made to do. Make the world a better place because that is why you are here!

Joy comes from the realization that light eliminates darkness. It comes from the truth that it is the light that we emit by focusing on truth that saves us and that saves the world. We create light for the world to see when we forgive. We see our own light when we forgive ourselves and when we realize that the past is gone and a new world has dawned.

If you have gone through the exercises over the last 74 days, you are at the point that the light has come. You are at the point that the light is a part of you, and you are sharing that light with the world. Today, it is time to celebrate because you have forgiven yourself and forgiven the world. You are connected with the Spirit and it is being emitted from your very being.

Your challenge today is simple. You are to embrace the light that is you. You are to embrace the joy of truth. You are to know that nothing that is real can be threatened. You cannot be threatened! You are secure in your value and confident in your purpose. I challenge you to spend seven different 3-minute periods looking at yourself in the mirror and smiling. Demonstrate what it means to be the light and to emit joy. Do this today and see what a difference it makes in your life as well as in the lives of everyone you come into contact with.

Internal conflict arises from seeing the world in one way and believing that it should be something else. When we look at the world and focus on what is wrong, we continue to find more and more of what is wrong. When we let go of the trappings of the ego, we find peace in knowing that what we have always truly wanted, is also what God has also always wanted.

It is actually pretty amazing how freeing it is to know that what you have wanted in your soul is what God put there for you. There never was any true conflict. The conflict came from listening to the ego and what we thought the world would think made sense for us instead of listening to our will. God's will is our will. The Spirit has always wanted what was best for us, what played to our strengths, and what brought joy and beauty to the world.

The thoughts of conflict are meaningless. It is only peace that should guide us. It is only the true will that we should listen to and should follow. For me, it is the still small voice that I know is there, that I know to be true, that defines His will in my life.

My challenge to you is the same challenge that I give myself. Let go of the trappings of the ego, worrying about what other people will think about you following the voice inside of you, and follow the will of God which is in perfect harmony with yours. You cannot be in conflict with truth, only with illusion.

The grand illusion of our time is the idea that we want turmoil, that suffering and pain will somehow make us more loved.

I watched the movie, "Bruce Almighty," with my daughter recently. I had seen it before, but we were looking for a comedy and it came up as a suggestion on Netflix. In the movie, Bruce gets mad at God because things are going so poorly for him. He is an angry person and doesn't like the place he is in his life. Everything in his world is about trying to finding happiness outside of himself. God invites him to His place and they talk about what is going on. God ends up bestowing all of his powers onto Bruce so that he can "fix this whole thing" in a week or so. The really cool part of the story is that Bruce finally figures out that his happiness came from his own will and from choosing to be happy. In the end, all Bruce wanted was to be with the woman he loved, use his gifts to make people laugh, and choose joy. It was never the big promotion or the money or any of the illusions that was going to bring him peace. It was learning to live as the best version of himself, to live into God's purpose.

The same thing is true for all of us. We have chosen our attitude in this world. Regardless of the circumstances that we find ourselves in, we still have a choice. We always have a choice. All the Spirit wants for us is that we would be joyful and would use the gifts and talents that we have. We have our own will and we are tasked with using that will for good. We are tasked with using our will to help and to heal and to save. When we exercise our gifts, we are in flow. Mihály Csíkszentmihályi (pronounced: Me-hi Chick-sent-me-hi) is likely best known for his book, Flow. In the book, he describes that we are joyful, peaceful, and successful when we are doing what we were designed to do with the people we were designed to do it with.

I WILL there to be light! It is my will to be a light for others. It is my will to be saved and to bring salvation to others. I will that I live into my authentic self. I will that I choose peace and joy and love and happiness today. And, in the words of Bruce Almighty (slightly modified - LOL)...

MY WILL BE DONE! (Insert lightning strikes and other cool cinematic effects here)

In order to hold a grievance against another person, I have to see that person as a physical body and not as a child of the Creator. Additionally, I have to see myself in the same form in order to hold a grievance against them. This is the ego's fundamental ploy, to convince us that we are NOT the spiritual embodiment of God. When we define ourselves through the ego as simply human bodies, we miss the truth of who we are and we lose the pathway to salvation.

My oldest child is going through the book of Job right now as a part of her religion class. She and I have been discussing what the trials must have been like for Job as he lost his home, his land, his family, his livestock, and everything else that would embody physical value on this earth. The great illusion would say that Job was under attack and that he was losing everything worth living for. Job did not see it that way because he understood the truth about who he was. He understood that the ego was trying to tell him that his only value was in his stuff and in the things around him. The ego then did what it does, it began to take away the very things that it tried to get Job to define as true worth. During that time, Job understood one simple truth. He was a child of the Creator and his value was in the truth that God was in every fiber of his being. His Spirit was safe. There was never any threat there because there never could be any threat. The threat was only to the ego, not to the truth.

Nothing real can be threatened. Nothing unreal even exists. Herein lies the peace of God.

We are called to save ourselves through the truth of our connectedness. We only put ourselves at risk when we deny God's plan for our lives. His plan is to be one with you and to help you achieve your purpose. When we hold grievances, we limit ourselves to communication through the human context and we lose the universal connection that God created in order to be in relationship with us. The moment that we realize that we are not our bodies, we are saved. It is not required that we die in order to achieve salvation. That is the trapping of the ego. It is only required that we live as one with God. At the moment that we choose that, we are living in salvation.

Ask the Creator what design he has created for your life. Ask Him what he would have you do. Then remember that His greatest purpose for you is to be in relationship with Him. Everything else will be revealed to you after you choose Him.

When I was starting out in my working life, I had multiple opportunities to learn about management and leadership. LIke most people, I had some really good examples and I also had some really bad ones. It's kind of funny that I seemed to have learned more about what I didn't want to be from the bad examples than I learned about what I wanted to be from the good ones. The trick was, and still is, to figure out which examples you should follow and which ones you should do the opposite of.

The ego has its own plan for salvation for you. It wants to you to seek and seek and never find what you are looking for. It wants you to look in all of the places that salvation isn't. God's plan is for you to be saved and for you to help to save the world around you. The ego would tell you that you are saved if you are better than others. Yet, that would be using judgement to establish that you are better than others. And, are we not instructed to "judge not, lest you be judged?" Then your ego will begin to pick apart the things that you must change, or improve, or modify in order to be saved. You will find that you are left wanting again with that plan. The ego tells you that you are not quite good enough with every change, with every sacrifice, with every modification of self. That isn't what we are supposed to do, however.

God's plan is that we are saved the moment that we are in connection with Him. The moment that we give up the illusion of separation from God that the ego has manufactured and that most people have clung to, that is the moment of salvation. In this connection, we go beyond prayer. We live with the mind of God being a part of our own mind. We live with the wisdom of the Creator inside of us. We must simply ask what God would have us do. I would challenge you to open your soul to the Creator and ask Him to be your guide in salvation. Ask Him to direct your thoughts and your actions. By doing so, you will become one with His will and one with truth. Love, for in love there are no grievances. Grievances are the opposite of God's plan. The ego is your bad example and helps you to know exactly what NOT to do. Love holds to record of wrongs.

One of the more challenging thoughts for me is the idea that all that I need to achieve salvation, I already have access to. In this thought, Throughout my life, I have clung to so many other things, though. I have tried to find peace in relationships and been sorely disappointed. I have tried to find peace in exercise and been left wanting. I have tried to find peace in success and found myself only in more turmoil. I have even tried to find peace in learning and felt more empty at the end. The problem was that anything that was outside of me was a part of the grand illusion. I have to remember that nothing that is unreal can save me. Only that which is real can.

God exists as a part of us. His Spirit is what guides us and it is reclaiming our connection to Him that provides our salvation. When we look at anything from this world, anything from the illusion of peace, we find only more lack. Whether we seek money, or power, or things, we find ourselves still feeling unsaved. Worse yet, we often feel unworthy of being saved. It is only our connectedness that restores our salvation. We were not born inherently bad. We were born as connected beings. When we restore our own connection, we begin to bring salvation and healing to the world around us as well. If we are not saved, meaning that we have not let go of the illusions and reclaimed our oneness with God, then we cannot save others. We can only bring them harm.

Our pursuit of the illusion is our own. Our salvation is our own. And our salvation impacts everything and everyone that we come into contact with. Our guilt is our creation, just as our salvation is our creation as well. In John 14:12, Jesus tells us that we will do the same works as Him, and even greater works. He came to save the world from its sin (disconnected nature), the same as we are called to do. It is just that He lived in full connection, in perfect love. I am a part of God and He is a part of me. Therefore, I am connected and I am saved. You find the peace that you are seeking from accepting God as a part of who you are, as a part of every fiber of your being. You will never find peace outside of yourself. You will find only the illusion.

Choose today to save yourself, and by doing so, choose to save the world.

Jody Holland

Jody is a writer, motivational speaker, consultant, and entrepreneur. He has been the keynote speaker at over 250 events around the world. Jody speaks more than 150 times per year at different programs, and he has given more than 10,000 speeches during his career.

Jody has written 16 books and has many more to come.

If you are interested in booking Jody for your conference or event, click the Contact Jody Holland button to contact him.